Scam survey promises gift voucher

Scam survey promises gift voucher

Perhaps it is the looming Easter break that caused this latest survey scam email to start appearing today. Yes, once again a “survey” scam email has hit the ether, this time promising the recipient a Woolworths gift voucher to the tune of $150, if they just answer a few simple questions. Of course, you have to click on a link and provide some details first. Sadly (perhaps) it is a scam. The email promises a $150 gift voucher, but singularly fails to deliver.

One sample of the emails we received is shown in Figure A. The scammers will use your email address in the body of the email. They also use it in the subject line. The subject line of the email will therefore read “<recipient email address> Your Woolworths voucher worth $150”. The email sender is listed as “Woolworths Rewards Vouchers”. The greeting makes an attempt at being personal by using the email address of the recipient.

However, there is no real use of the typical Woolworths branding or logos in the email. Three links are present in the email. These lead to the same website. Two of the links are to an unsubscribe option. The third link is to the “survey”.

Figure A – Click to Enlarge

Once again, the scammers are aping legitimate marketing tactics. This email informs the recipient that they can win a $150 gift voucher, if they can answer a simple question. The recipient is invited to click on a link to receive their gift card. The idea is that the customer can print out their gift card and head off to Woolworths to use it.

It all sounds great, until you head towards a link, and find that the site wants extra details, including credit cards and various items of personal information. If you check where the links actually lead to, you find they don’t lead to the Woolworths site, or even to an affiliated site. Woolworths have their own page on scams such as these.